Latin Leaders to Push Own Agenda With Bush at Costa Rican Summit : Diplomacy: Many of those scheduled to attend the conference believe that the United States has yet to show a coherent, constructive policy toward the region.

When President Oscar Arias Sanchez phoned the White House last spring with an invitation to come celebrate Costa Rica’s 100th year of democracy, George Bush took the call himself.

“His first reaction was, ‘I’ll do my best to be there,’ ” recalls Guido Fernandez, Arias’ press secretary at the time.

From that unguarded moment on President Bush’s schedule--an agenda with relatively little time for Latin America--plans have mushroomed for what is to be the biggest meeting of Western Hemisphere heads of government in 22 years.

The growth of this country’s birthday party into a summit of 16 presidents and prime ministers is a sign of the eagerness among Latin Americans to learn firsthand how Bush intends to treat their region, and to press their agenda on him.

Although Bush, since becoming President, has personally met the leaders of 10 of the 15 other countries that will be represented at the summit, the gathering here Friday and Saturday marks his first presidential venture south of the Rio Grande.

And while his Administration has forged a special relationship with Mexico, boosted aid to governments fighting drug traffickers and offered a new strategy for easing Latin debt burdens, the view here is that Bush still lacks a coherent, constructive policy toward the region.

The Bush Administration does not plan any new steps to change that impression. U.S. officials, in fact, have carefully avoided calling the session a summit, preferring to refer to it as a meeting or a celebration in order to play down any expectations about its outcome. They also forced Arias to abandon his goal of a final proclamation by all 16 participants.

Asked Wednesday about plans for the trip, Secretary of State James A. Baker III made clear that no bold departures are in store. “Are we going down there with an Alliance for Progress or a Marshall Plan (for Latin redevelopment)? You know we’re not because you know the budget constraints that we face,” he said.

“There won’t be any formal resolutions or communiques,” Baker added, “but we still see this as an opportunity to discuss many, many very important issues.”

Latin Americans’ courtship of Washington, repeated with each Administration, has a special urgency this time because their politically explosive recession is in its seventh year with no end in sight.

Payments on the region’s $410-billion foreign debt will exceed new lending by $38 billion in 1989, an unprecedented drain that Brazilian President Jose Sarney calls “a Marshall Plan in reverse.” Shaken this year by bloody rioting over price rises in Argentina and Venezuela, Latin leaders will warn Bush that without massive help from Washington, their new democracies are in danger.

“Bush is coming to celebrate the consolidation of democracy in the hemisphere, but this process has not been accompanied by social and economic advance,” said Gert Rosenthal, a Guatemalan who heads the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America. “I suppose Bush knows this. But he might not really understand until he hears it from Latin Americans in Latin America.”

Arias devised a six-point summit agenda, hoping to involve Bush in a hemispherical proclamation on how to bolster democracy. As his aides brainstormed, they noticed that much of what has to be achieved, or avoided, begins with the letter D. They dubbed it the Summit of the Six D’s: democracy, development, disarmament, debt, drugs and deforestation.

Pointing to the East-West thaw in Europe, Arias said this week: “Latin America can be part of this new spirit. A new process of cooperation, in place of confrontation, is beginning in San Jose.”

Latin leaders have worked more closely together since military dictators dominant in the 1970s gave way to elected governments. A consensus is building in favor of smaller budget deficits, freer trade and less government meddling in the domestic economy.

“The experience of the ‘80s has brought an attitude of realism and sobriety,” said Rodrigo Botero, a former finance minister of Colombia. “That should make a dialogue with Bush much easier.”

But others feel that Bush is a prisoner of the Cold War view of his predecessor, who focused on Central America.

Before Bush formally accepted the summit invitation, Costa Rican officials said, the U.S. Embassy urged Arias either to scratch Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega from the guest list or to invite Gen. Augusto Pinochet and Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, the military rulers of Chile and Haiti.

Arias refused, insisting that all elected leaders are welcome and those who seized power by force are not. Cuba and Panama were also excluded on that basis.

U.S. officials now have decided to make the best of the situation. “The criteria that President Arias used” for invitations depended on “whether or not a country had, in fact, conducted elections, not whether the elections that the country had conducted were free and fair,” Baker said when asked about Ortega’s presence at the summit. “We don’t think it legitimizes him.”

Baker added that Bush would not “refuse to speak if spoken to, but he’s not going to meet with him and he’s not going to be extending any particular courtesies in that direction.”

U.S. officials also told Arias that Bush would not join Ortega in signing anything. A proposed summit declaration was scrapped in favor of informal discussions.

U.S. officials, and many from Latin America, say this is just as well. With so many leaders here, they believe, some unsigned accords are bound to result. In addition to the four not invited, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Suriname and the Dominican Republic also will be missing.

“Don’t underestimate the give-and-take that will happen here,” U.S. Ambassador Deane R. Hinton said here in an interview. “There will be some serious talk, and this is the way you advance the ball. I’ve been to international meetings that turn out declarations that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. That’s fraud. At least there’s not going to be any fraud perpetrated here.”

Bush will be judged at the summit not only on Central America but also on his readiness to look beyond the isthmus to other problems. Two U.S. initiatives are up for critical review:

-- A scheme by Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady to reduce debt burdens of Third World nations. It asks banks to forgive portions of a country’s debt in return for International Monetary Fund and World Bank guarantees for the remainder.

While Mexico has rescheduled its debt under the so-called Brady Plan, opposition to it has risen from other industrialized nations and from creditor banks. Elected Latin leaders, having risked their popularity with the required belt-tightening, now fear it will die for lack of financial backing before any other nation can benefit.

-- An offer to quadruple aid to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to $261 million for police to crack down on cocaine production. Some officials in those Andean nations say the policy won’t work unless matched by money to help coca-growing peasants plant legal crops.

“From the Latin American viewpoint, it is not so important what Bush says about these problems, but whether and how he listens,” said Peter D. Bell, U.S. vice chairman of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank of Western Hemisphere leaders. “Bush has shown that he can listen to those who differ with his views. The question is whether he will be willing to have his views affected by what he hears.”

Times staff writer David Lauter, in Washington, contributed to this story.